Our Stories

Expanding our reach through partnership

On May 2 - 3, the Ambassadors of Mongolia, Thailand and Tanzania travelled to Edmonton for an Ambassador Tour. This tour involves the Ambassadors receiving tours of several businesses in the Edmonton area. There were two dinners hosted with the Ambassadors and business people.

"I would like to thank you both so much again for all the terrific work that you did in putting together an excellent Ambassadors' Business Trip to Edmonton on 2-4 May 2016. I found the trip extremely useful and learned a lot from it. I will report to Bangkok about the trip." - Vijavat Isarabhakdi, Ph.D. Ambassador of Thailand, Royal Thai Embassy

There are many aspects to this. There is international and local networking, business development, and gives us the opportunity to share the gospel. The Ambassadors are hosted in homes of local business people who are believers.This gives the Ambassadors an experience in a local home, but also exposes them to godly people. One of them asked his hosts, "Can you say a prayer before I leave?" Two of these Ambassadors are Buddhist so it was a unique opportunity to share Christ.

This was a great opportunity for Cam to partner with Jerry Sherman of Embassy Connections and what God is doing through him in Canada and other parts of the world.

Ambassador Tour dinner and presentations

Church planting training in production

The Nuvo Series training material is currently being written, scripts are being created and filming is about to start. Over the past months, the material was tested and the lessons have been worked through in great detail with Campus Crusade's church planting team at Global Church Movements. We have worked on the whiteboard through Google Hangout to bring people together from Florida, Minnesota, Alberta and BC. Through this connection, we planned out many aspects of the lessons. We continue to be enthusiastic about how God is going to use this training. To think that people can take comprehensive training in community on their cell phones from the remotest parts of the world.

Thank you!

Thank you so much for joining us in ministry as we are able to share Christ. Because of you, we are able to come alongside and help organizations accelerate what God has called them to by networking and resourcing them with digital media expertise and tools.

Sports, aid and evangelism in Manchay, Peru

A tool to freely share the gospel in Manchay, Peru

"No more excuses." That's all the local church in Manchay, Peru could say upon receiving the gift of a backpack of Jesus Film equipment that Cam and Brett brought to the church they were working with on their recent trip in March. They were filled with pure joy and thanksgiving,

In the past, they would hurt their bodies toting around extensive equipment and run into various road blocks such as having to pay someone for electricity to run the gear. Now they can simply carry the small equipment where they need to go and power it off the battery. In the weeks since Cam and Brett came back from the trip, the local church has already shown the film to hundreds of people, including many commitments to Christ that will be discipled going forward.

Church planting training

We were able to make a connection with a local Peruvian that has been planting churches for over 20 years with Campus Crusade. After accidentally purchasing two flights for her to come to Manchay, she was able to not only join us, but also return a few weeks later to teach the MC2 training (which is the very training that Iconium is creating in the digital online learning platform, called Nuvo Series).

Iconium Strategies partners with Sport Aid & Communities for Life in Manchay, Peru

Sports. It's a doorway to sharing Christ with young students.

Going forward, the local leadership will be able to adopt this church planting strategy, assisted by the Jesus Film equipment, and saturate the valley with the gospel. Sport also appears to be an incredibly valuable resource. The three day soccer camp directed by Trinity Western coaches and players was the best three days of some of the kids' lives. This is the start of a soccer program and other sports that will keep kids off the streets and teach them qualities such as leadership built on Christian foundations.

NUVO series: digital church planting training

In the past 2 months, the Iconium team has been actively writing scripts and online church planting training lessons. The project has been tested by countries all around the world. The online connection for learning as well as the face-to-face meetings with the digital training have been successfully reviewed.

The Campus Crusade International team are pleased with the pilot results and eager to continue the development. It's been such a privilege to partner on a project this significant. This image shows some of the locations where training is currently taking place. This will only be accelerated as the training becomes available through mobile resources. To think that 7,000 people were trained in the last year, and that this online training tool will help them train 70,000, and then 700,000 people in the next few years. What a privilege to be part of this

Your partnership

Your partnership enables us to work with several key organizations to help further the gospel. In some ways, we serve the role of being a "Barnabas", where we come alongside with our giftedness, both in media and networking to help organizations accelerate their vision and mission.

Iconium Strategies operates as a registered charity (in partnership with The Great Commission Foundation). The donations go directly to help us subsidize the ministry of evangelism and transformation. Because of your support, we were able to help launch a church planting initiative to plant 100 churches in Peru, create online church planting training and various other projects.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to continue to partner with you in ministry in this way.

Serving together,

Cam & Karen Schenk

p.s. On May 2 - 3, Iconium Strategies is partnering with Embassy Connections to host an Ambassador Tour. Please pray for this event. We look forward to telling more about it.

Cam and Brett are travelling to Manchay, Peru March 5 - 10th to engage in a ministry project. A year ago, Cam introduced Jack Neufeld (of Communities for Life) to Graham from Athletes in Action. Many conversations took place to plan this trip. It's now come together and Graham will be bringing a few players from Trinity Western University soccer team. They will be doing soccer camps for kids, coaches training and leadership development training.

There is another partner joining the group who feeds nearly 20,000 kids a month in Paraguay. He will be bringing his expertise to help further the sustainable communities that Communities for Life is developing.

Along with these aspects, Brett and Cam are bringing in Jesus Film equipment that they will be leaving for some of the local organizations to continue to use after they have left.

Prayer requests

Several new initiatives are being launched that could have major implications on this community in Manchay. Please be in prayer for the following items:

1. Athletes in Action from Vancouver and Paraguay with some athletes under the leadership of Graham for a sports clinic and coach training.2. Iconium Strategies (Brett and Cam), together with Adele (a Campus Crusade Peru staff member) will be introducing the Jesus film strategy and assign equipment.3. Communities for Life will find ways to support, expand and fund the existing programs. 4. Communities for Life will find solutions for the Sewing Incubator to start producing revenue.5. Communities for Life will seek to expand the Micro Loan Program.

We will appreciate your prayers. Please pray as the Jesus Film equipment is being brought across the border. Pray for the health of the team as well as safe travel and meaningful meetings . Pray especially for Rocio and Julio who are the local ministry leaders in Manchay. Pray that the Lord will raise up new leaders to work with them, especially in the evangelistic and sports ministry.

It's a privilege to see how this partnership has developed into a meaningful and impactful ministry outreach.

Please also continue to pray for an Ambassador Tour that Cam is coordinating in Edmonton in the next months.

Media outreach

Iconium Strategies is continuing to grow and have an impact. Most recently, our team put together a video for Sherwood Park Alliance Church on prayer. The church planter training has been tested by groups around the globe over the past weeks. The response has been very positive and development will be continuing within the next days.

One of the most powerful evangelism tools is the telling of one's personal testimony. This short video is the intro to Session 11 of the training for the church planter series. It was filmed in Iconium's studio (that was created in our garage) Check it out!

New churches - by the hundreds and then thousands!

Our team has been "all hands on deck" to create a digital training prototype for Global Church Movement (Campus Crusade International). We took two of the lessons and saw an amazing product come together. It's now being piloted and tested before the remaining lessons are completed. You can check it out at http://nuvoseries.com. This training will help plant hundreds and thousands of churches around the world. What an opportunity to be part of something so powerful. Please pray for this process.

Soccer ministry in Peru

On March 5th, Cam and Brett will be going to Lima, Peru in a partnership between Iconium Strategies, Neufeld Foundation and Athletes in Action to share the gospel through the sport of soccer and providing humanitarian relief. Please pray for them as they prepare for this trip.

It's been incredible journey that we are in as we seek God's continued direction in ministry. We are so thankful for the opportunity to have a profound impact in Kingdom work and to continue in ministry. You are such a blessing. We could not do this without you!

Thank you so much for serving with us! We appreciate your prayers and partnership with us!

Can you imagine trusting God to go from training 7,000 to 70,000, and then to 700,000 church planters? Watch this powerful video that our team just created which tells the story behind this vision!

God still does miracles

A year ago, God began a transition journey with Cam & I. He was in the process of transplanting us. We were confused and had no idea what would happen. Then God showed me very clearly that He was asking me to become "a major player in creating and facilitating responsive media that would result in transformation". Cam & I couldn't even begin to guess how He was going to do that! I know God wanted to help us to overcome our disbelief. He called us to stay the course and pray with great faith. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7) We have seen God open many doors for us to serve Him in ways we could not have imagined.

Multi-generational church plants

This past week, Cam & I attended the annual conference for GACX, (Global Alliance of Church Partnership) in Minneapolis. We were absolutely blown away by the stories of faith. There were endless stories of how people who had been trained and had planted churches took that next step and trained another, who also planted a church. Initially, I thought this was a one-off story, then realized that many people in places like Africa and India were planting churches 5 - 8 generations! Then I was told about an 18 generation church plant! Incomprehensible! However, they gathered the 18 leaders of all those church plants together and had taken a photo of each trainer having his hand on the shoulder of their trainee.

God honors faith and obedience

It's impossible to imagine people being killed for their faith and for those around them to keep sharing their faith. We heard these stories. One of the speakers told the story of a remote village that had killed all the missionaries who had come to them. The mission organization decided they would no longer send people there. In their office, they drew a big red circle on their ministry map around that village clearly indicating that this was not a place they would go. Then one day, a woman on his team came to David and told him that God had called her to go to that village. He refused to give her permission. However, she continued to come back asking to go. She finally asked him, "who is bigger, you or God?" With that, he released her to go. She went and saw incredible fruit. God granted favour for her obedience.

Summary

It's been incredible for God to open the doors to work on this project and others that are coming our way. We are doing some work for a company and helping them with a project in a remote village in Africa that we will be telling you about in our next letter. Please pray for wisdom as we seek God for next steps.

Please pray for Kaylin and Brett as they have both been experiencing health issues.

Thank you so much for serving with us! We appreciate your prayers and partnership with us!